Generosity: Test Me...

What does it actually mean to be generous as a Christian?

For many young Christian professionals, conversations about money, giving, and generosity can bring up anxiety, guilt, or even confusion. How much should you give? Is tithing still required? Should you wait until you make more money to start giving generously?

In this episode, we take a biblical look at generosity, stewardship, tithing, and what it means to trust God with our finances.

The goal isn't to tell you exactly how much money you should give or promise that God will make you wealthy if you give more. Instead, we're exploring a deeper question:

What if everything we have already belongs to God—and generosity is one of the ways we learn to trust Him with what He's given us?

Key Takeaways

1. Everything we have belongs to God.

It's easy to think of our money, careers, possessions, time, and abilities as things that belong exclusively to us. Biblical stewardship starts with a different perspective: everything we have is ultimately God's, and we're called to faithfully steward what He's entrusted to us.

2. Generosity isn't about getting rich.

Biblical generosity isn't a formula where you give God money and He gives you more money in return. Generosity is about trust, obedience, stewardship, and participation in God's work.

3. Don't wait until you make more money to become generous.

But continually postponing generosity can become a lifestyle. The best time to develop a generous heart isn't necessarily when you have more money—it's now, with whatever God has already entrusted to you.

4. Generosity is about opening your hands.

Instead of holding tightly to everything we have, generosity invites us to pray:

“God, this is Yours. What would You like me to do with it?”

That mindset changes the way we think about money, possessions, careers, time, and resources.

5. Generosity is ultimately about our relationship with God.

Giving isn't simply about supporting churches, nonprofits, ministries, or people in need. Generosity forms us.

It teaches us to trust God, loosens our attachment to material things, and gives us an opportunity to participate in what God is doing in the world.

What is NextGen Kingdom Leaders?

Helping young Christian professionals grow in their work, leadership, and faith

Hey, everyone.

Welcome to this week's episode of
the NextGen Kingdom Leaders podcast.

This week we're talking about generosity,
and I can almost feel the anxiety well

up in you, feel the f- the, the fear,
feel the, this is a topic I don't wanna

talk about because I'm just gonna be
made to feel guilty that maybe I'm not

generous or as I'm generous as I should
be, whatever that even means, or he's

gonna tell me to give away all my money.

That's not it.

Um, and so, so stick with us for a
few minutes here, and if, if you wanna

kinda go onto a deeper dive, you can
subscribe to our newsletter or, uh, we

posted some things about gener-generosity
on our social media this week.

Uh, but generosity is interesting.

Um, we, we see all throughout
scripture and the Old Testament

that people, people try to almost
cheat God of, of what was his.

Uh, we, we kind of operate under the
assumption that the things that we have

are ours, and we'll give God a little bit.

In reality, everything is God's.

Everything that we have is God's.

Uh, our resources are God's, our
time is God's, our, our gifts and

skills and abilities are God's.

And throughout the Old Testament- Uh,
this word tithe is used to demonstrate

giving a tenth, one tenth of what
you have back to God, back to the

church, back to God's people for God
to use for His purposes, and it was

meant to be the first of what you had.

So if you had grain, it was meant
to be the first ten percent of the

grain, not the last ten percent.

If you had animals to give,
it should b- should be your

best animal, not your worst.

It should be given out of overflow,
not o- out of what's left over.

And as far as I can tell, as it relates
to giving and generosity, this is the

only thing in all of Scripture where
God tells His people to test Him in it.

Because they were so reluctant to trust
Him, so reluctant to believe what He

told them, so reluctant to, to give
generously to God and to God's people,

that God almost dared them to give.

Here's what it says in, in the
book of Malachi, uh, chapter three.

"I, the Lord, do not
change," starts in verse six.

"So you, the descendants of
Jacob, are not destroyed.

Ever since the time of your
ancestors, you have turned away from

my decrees and have not kept them.

Return to me and I will return
to you," says the Lord Almighty.

"But you ask, 'How are we to return?'

Will a mere mortal rob God?

Yet you rob me.

But you ask, 'How are we robbing you?'

In tithes and offerings.

You are under a curse, your whole
nation, because you are robbing me.

Bring the whole tithe into the storehouse,
that there may be food in my house.

Test me in this," says the Lord
Almighty, "and see if I will not throw

open the floodgates of heaven and
pour out so much blessing that there

will not be room enough to store it.

I will prevent pests from devouring
your crops, and the vines in your

fields will not drop their fruit before
it is ripe," says the Lord Almighty.

"Then all, all the nations will call
you blessed, for yours will be a

delightful land," says the Lord Almighty.

He says, "Test me and see what I do.

Give me your best and see what I do."

Now, I wanna be careful with this
because what it is not saying to us

is that if you give, if you give a
tenth of, of what you have, if you

give the best of your resources,
I will double, triple, quadruple,

quintuple, multiply your resources
tenfold, twentyfold, a hundredfold.

If you give me some, I will make
you rich beyond your wildest dreams.

That's not what it's saying.

But I think what God is saying is, "If
you, if you trust me with this- You

will get to experience joy and abundance
and fruitfulness in ways you would

otherwise not have been able to because
there is something about living the life

that God has called us to that leads
to us experiencing life to its full.

In John 10:10, Jesus says,
"I came that they might have

life and have it to its full."

And I would argue the only way we can
have life in the way God intended us to

have life is by living life according
to how Jesus invites us to have it.

And, and living life any other
way is actually missing out on the

goodness and the joy and the beauty
of what God is inviting us into.

And we see, we see this even now.

We're really no different than
the people in the Old Testament.

We like to cheat and rob God.

The average churchgoer right
now gives 2% of their income

to the church or to anybody.

They don't-- They give 2%
of their, their money away.

2%.

It's nothing.

And, and, and, and really what it
is is if we don't give, if we don't

give generously, we get to miss out.

We miss out on the joy of following Jesus.

We miss out on the joy of partnering
with what God is doing in our

communities and around the world.

We miss out on what it means to, to follow
Jesus obediently, because following Jesus

obediently is actually for our good.

The things that we have are God's anyway.

God is allowing us to have it, and we
need to be good stewards of what He's

given us, and one of the ways that
we can be good stewards is by giving.

And it's easy to have this mindset of
like, "Well, I'll give later, when I

make more money, when I get promoted,
or when I have a house, or when I have

kids, or when I get married, or whatever.

You know, when I hit a certain amount
of money in my savings account, when I

hit a certain amount of money in my 401,
when I pay off my student loans, when

I p- when I pay off my credit card."

It's easy to say, "When, when, if,
if, later, later, I will do this,"

and in fact, I think the more we
harden our hearts now and push

things off till later, once later
comes, it gets kicked down the road.

And as-- If we intentionally live
outside of what God is, is asking of us

and inviting us into, we're hardening
our hearts to the point where at some

point they won't be softened again.

We become used to a lifestyle
that neglects generosity.

We becu- we become accustomed to the
lifestyles that we live, the cars

that we drive, the things that we
have, and generosity never arrives.

It's like any habit.

Instead of s- you know, "I'm gonna,
I'm gonna get healthy, I'm gonna

exercise, I'm gonna follow a diet
one day," today's gonna be day one.

I'm going to start doing this now.

And so doesn't matter what your budget
is, doesn't matter if you make a million

dollars a year or ten dollars a year,
you can budget giving into your expenses,

whether it's to your church, whether
it's to a nonprofit, whether it's to a

neighbor whose stove broke and they can't
cook food or their-- y- your, a local

backpack drive for the elementary school.

It doesn't matter.

I don't care where you give it.

I care that you, you open your hands
that might be closed tightly around

your money and say, "God, this is yours.

What would you like me to do with it?

How can I use this to serve your
purposes throughout the world?"

And it's in that that we get to experience
what God i- talks about in eternity.

A.W.

Tozer, a pastor out of Chicago
from the early twentieth century,

says, "Any temporal possession can
be turned into everlasting wealth,

because whatever is given to Christ is
immediately touched with immortality."

There is an eternal nature to our giving.

C.S.

Lewis, the great twentieth-century
author, uh, British author, says

this, "I do not believe one can
settle how much we ought to give.

I'm afraid the only safe rule is
to give more than we can spare."

See, we're not here to tell you how
much to give, what the dollar amount

is, but what, what feels like a lot?

What feels like sacrificial?

What feels like a step in obedience?

St.

Augustine says it like this, "Charity
is a virtue which, when our affections

are perfectly ordered, unites us
to God, for by it we love Him."

Generosity unites our hearts with God.

J.I.

Packer, a, a more, uh, modern-day
author, uh, wrote a lot of famous

books, says this, "The measure
of all life is in its giving.

The measure of the love of
God is the cross of Christ."

George Muller, a f- uh, a, a
missionary, says, "God judges

what we give by what we keep."

So maybe we shouldn't be asking how
much of what we have should we give.

Maybe we should be asking God,
"How much of this should we keep,

and can we give away the rest?"

So just some things to think about
this week as it relates to generosity.

Please don't wait.

Please, please seek the Lord.

Seek what He's asking of you
in this season of life, and

test Him and see what He does.